This marvelous book is one of the seminal documentations of the founding days of Massachusetts. For all the descendants of this group of founding families of New England, mostly but not exclusively members of the Winthrop ships migration which largely supplied the early population of the Boston area, who moved to Watertown, were residents of perhaps the earliest major suburb in America. Even if one is not related to any of these families, mandatory historical reading is Appendix I, where Dr. Henry Bond has assembled a history of what all was involved in founding a town out of the wilderness. Along with the New England portions of the recent book "1491" by Charles Mann and Dr. Bond's Appendix I, supplemented by Anya Seton's superb historical novel "The Winthrop Woman," one can acquire a fascinating understanding of the conditions facing our forefathers and mothers in establishing the American experience. Of course, the whole book and especially the maps are a fountain of information which would be of special interest to descendants.